Dead Waters - Anton Strout [24]
“What the hell happened?” she asked.
“I happened,” a voice called out from behind her. Connor stood in the doorway Jane had just come through, panting and rolling his left shoulder. “Jesus, those gargoyles weigh as much as a kraken.”
Jane hugged me and handed my satchel over. “What happened?” she repeated. “The second you threw yourself over the railing, I took off down the stairs and missed everything.”
“It looked like that woman was doing something to you in the pool, kid,” Connor said, walking over to us. He handed me my jacket, looked down at the pile of stone, and kicked a few pieces around, too. “Interesting. No body.”
“Oh, you noticed?” I said, still catching my breath. “I don’t know what the hell she really is, but basically she was using the pool water to crush me. Maybe she’s some kind of water elemental. . . ?”
Connor shook his head at me. “And this is why we don’t go jumping over high-rise railings after strange women,” he said. His chiding was probably the closest I was going to get to hearing him say that he was glad I was okay.
“Well, I thought it was heroic,” Jane said, smiling. “Stupid, but heroic.”
“Thanks,” I said. I brushed her wet hair out of the way and kissed her forehead. “Next time, you get to jump first.”
She hugged me and I hissed as pain flared up my side.
“Careful,” I said.
Jane stepped back quickly, concern on her face. “Are you hurt?”
I pressed along my bruised ribs gently, testing them. “Not too badly,” I said. “More my pride than anything. Drowning in someone’s pool isn’t the way I really pictured myself dying. A vampire, werewolves, maybe, but not this.”
Connor tsk-tsked me.
“What?”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, heading back toward the door, “before I nominate you for the Departmental Medal of Stupidity.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a real thing or not. I wouldn’t put it past the Department to issue something like that, maybe a dunce cap to make an object lesson out of foolhardy agents. Connor walked off before I had a chance to ask him. All I could do was let Jane help me hobble my way off the patio. Given all our cuts recently, I wondered whose paycheck was going to cover the damage the falling gargoyle had made. I doubted we could expense it.
7
I wasn’t normally one to strip in the partially walled office cube that comprised the space Connor and I shared, but by the time we got back to the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, I hadn’t dried off at all and was shivering from my jump into the pool. Jane left me with Connor and ran off to report to Director Wesker over in Greater & Lesser Arcana as I hung up my satchel to dry out, and then peeled off my suede leather jacket before dropping it into a plastic-lined bin I now kept next to my desk.
Connor looked down at it. “Nice idea, kid. When did you put that there?”
I leaned against our partners desk as I struggled out of my wet Doc Martens, which were now clinging to my feet like they were glued on. “After that ectoplasm in the popcorn-machine incident in that off-Broadway theater,” I said. “My cleaning bills are through the roof, and even before these cuts, the Inspectre stopped letting me expense them. You’d think damage done in the line of duty would be covered . . .”
“I wouldn’t press him, kid.”
“No?” My Docs didn’t want to come off. I undid the laces even more and wiggled off the first one, tossing it in the bin.
“No,” Connor said. “It could be worse.”
“Worse than bagging my clothes up here on a weekly basis and then dragging them to the cleaners on my own dime? How could it be worse?”
“You press the Inspectre on it, and they might start issuing us uniforms. You want to wear a tan jumpsuit with your name stitched over the pocket?”
“Depends,” I said. “Do I get to be Egon? Do I get a Proton Pack?” My other boot